I learned today from an student's essay that during the period when legalized abortion was difficult to obtain in Canada & easier to obtain in the US, women travelling to get abortions were "directed to speak as little as possible and were advised to avoid saying certain words." (Probably about.)
It's so tedious. :( "Dear student, I know you worked hard on this so you deserve my attention in grading your assignment, but what if I just give you a B and we never speak of this again? XOXO, Gossip Prof."
Okay, I'm committing to ONE HOUR of grading. If I decide to do a full THREE HOURS of grading, that is better, but ONE hour is more than the 0 hours I want to do.
Obviously instead of grading I need to refamiliarize myself with all of these. Possibly for the next... ten days.
I am trying to avoid grading so I really want to pitch you watching Dan's video on Doug Walker's The Wall.
Basically Walker made a video about The Wall that is widely regarded as truly terrible, and Dan made a video breaking down what's compelling about it.
There is a busty nightmare squirell.
I feel the ending of "I Don't Know James Rolfe" hits a bit harder if you're familiar with Folding Ideas/Dan Olsen more generally but I could be wrong.
But Folding Ideas' "Comfortably Doug", which is about Dan's reaction to Doug Walker's review of The Wall, is also amazing.
Sex and the City meme, "And I couldn't help but wonder who assigned so many things to grade?"
It was Buckingham!
The other version of me has three dogs.
(Thread about conspiracy theories you "believe")
Terrier lurcher lying spindly style atop a dogbed, viewed from above.
Dog bed, occupied. By #dog.
#dogsofmastodon #dogbedsofmastodon
Another round of drop-in office hours for my online class whose exam is due Wednesday.
These are so boring but for the students who show up for them they're so useful.
What frustrates me is that people who are having these sorts of conversations do not understand that they are not representative of the average voter. If you're on bluesky or involved in local politics or organizing of any sort, you are not representative of the average voter.
Fishtopher, a classic brown tabby cat with green eyes, laying on his back in a sunny windowsill. His head presses against the ground and his canine teeth peek out from gravity. Behind him is a black cat in a yellow cat bed. Next to him is another tabby cat. Fish's body is curled to fit himself in between them, and his front paws are tucked towards his body.
Fishtopher in the same position as the last photo, but now has his front legs stretched out. He shows off his underbelly.
oooh big stretch
Wait, is that perfect duckling sleeping?!?? Brett, you bring me such joy.
Will ducklings fall asleep swimming?
Ooh, I will see what they have! I like nibbly things.
Pretzels are on my list for certain!
Sasha, I really miss deep-fried pickles. I hope my new city has a fair that sells them.
But yes, pickles are a great idea.
I'm going to get chocolate covered pretzels again, for sure.
You can tell I've hit the most boring part of grading because I want to live skeet the whole thing.
Anyway, I love reading student essays that reference work of people I worked with or went to grad school with or otherwise know through social media because it's like seeing a photo of an old friend.
In about an hour I'm going to go to the grocery store and I'm going to buy snacks to get me through the night and all day tomorrow of grading things.
Please advise on what I should buy.
I will also buy a frozen entree to lie on the floor and eat while crying but that's going to involve potatoes.
I totally get it! And in more casual writing it's serving a different purpose and it's fine.
But there's also the bit where sometimes profs are just annoyed by writing that is not annoying to other profs and I have to remember the difference.
I feel bad because every time I come across another scare quote in her essay I get annoyed!
A few years ago students starting using "We" in essays, like "we must study this" or whatever. No, YOU must study this. I have other things to do. I now ban it on instruction guidelines.
Often students put things in quotes to avoid potentially being blamed for opinions they don't hold or think their profs don't hold. They don't want me to think they believe women belong in the kitchen, so they put it in scare quotes rather than just trust that I know they're writing about the past.
"For experts in the 1950s, such as Dr. Spock, the ideal mother would do X, Y, and Z." And then just write like the reader knows that the ideal mother in question is defined by Dr. Spock, not by the writer of the paper.
It's basically "trust your reader a bit more than that."
They don't explain what they mean by 'ideal' in this case, and they don't explain what they think the people they're writing about mean. They're just saying 'ideal' without explanation.
A more effective way of doing this would be to write something like...
In student writing, scare quotes are often used by students as a way of softening what they're saying. They're not claiming this is the 'ideal' housewife, they're just repeating something they read. But they don't ever quote anyone who said the term 'idea' in relation to housewives....
I just satisfied my need to tell students not to do something in their essay by writing a very long comment explaining why & then deleting it because it's pedantic as fuck.
I am, of course, objectively correct, but no one needs a two-paragraph explanation on why they should stop using scare quotes.
Have you read A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki or The Conjoined by Jen Sookfong Lee?
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray gripped my group chat a few years ago. Watching everyone who was reading it react as more of us were convinced to read it was amazing.
What do you like to read?